UX Quotes

Process Quotes

“The entire profession of design is one rooted in failure, for without it there would be no need for designers. Designers exist to come in, assess what has been failing, and offer up solutions for the future. Even the process of creating that solution is made up of a variety of failures that lead the designer to a single golden idea. The more we design, the more failures we are exposed to, and the better our work becomes in the future for having learned what not to do.” – Brad Nunnally (source)

“As designers, we think through doing. Design is a reflective practice between the designer and her design materials. When you sketch something and commit it to paper, it moves from being an abstract thought to something that is more concrete and real. Perceiving this concreteness, in turn, influences your thinking, leading to new questions that spawn new ideas… It is the act of creating these design artifacts, rather than the artifacts themselves, that is the most valuable aspect of the design process.” – Dane Petersen (source)

“We don’t spend enough time up front on projects discussing, assessing, defining and refining the value of what we make. We jump too quickly into design and build before applying rigor to what we make. It’s easy to get lost in the product detail: a screen, code and forget what the product’s value is and who you are building it for. Everything we do should be to help move the product a little closer to success.” – Daniel Szuc (source)

“The process of design starts with exploration, but ends with refinement. The best designers carefully move from one to the other, making sure they spend enough time exploring before locking themselves into a design approach.” – Jared Spool (source)

“Designers don’t actually ‘solve’ problems. They ‘work through’ them. They use non-logical processes that are difficult to express in words but easier to express in action. They use models, mockups, sketches, and stories as their vocabulary. They operate in the space between knowing and doing, prototyping new solutions that arise from their four strengths of empathy, intuition, imagination, and idealism.” – Marty Neumeier (
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“Designers are optimistic people who are trained to be courageous about the future-and making the future happen. They aren’t always aware of the intricacies of operations and the impacts of the solutions they propose, just like entrepreneurs, but they aren’t afraid of confronting a blank piece of paper (or screen or board) and getting to work making something new.” – Nathan Shedroff (source)

“What’s more important than process is mindset. And when it comes to interaction design, that mindset is having empathy for and understanding your users, and creating something great for them.” – Peter Merholz (source)

“Now more than ever in increasingly complex, transient times, the need for holistic experiences is vital… To approach such design as a ‘whole’ â€” we need to understand the varying concepts of time and data through the perspectives of cohabitants, technology and business interests alike… We must constantly re-think our process to become melting pots of ideas, perspectives and skills that not only drill deep, but also wide.” – Rahul Sen (source)

“Because sketches are faster, require less overhead, and by their nature are perceived to be less ‘done,’ they are better suited to the task-artifact cycle of design exploration. They should be considered an effective modeling process for designers to be able to conceive and predict the consequences of certain design arguments during the design ideation phase and subsequently leading to better design.” – Will Evans (source)